Free Just Another Pretty Face (HT 459) by Candace Schuler Page A

They'd sometimes followed pretty closely on each other's heels—especially in his younger, wilder years— but they'd never overlapped.
    Simply by watching his father he'd learned, firsthand, what kind of destruction and pain lay down that path and he'd vowed, years ago, never to travel it himself. Despite his colorful reputation as a love-'em-and-leave-'em playboy, it was a vow he took very seriously. Yesterday, after the reporter from People left, he'd called Alanna Fairchild to say his goodbyes. The ending was a little more abrupt than he would have liked—in the timing, if nothing else—but he and Alanna had both known the relationship would never be more than physical and she professed to have no hard feelings.
    It wouldn't have made any difference if she had, he realized a little uneasily, glancing over at the silent woman beside him. He'd set his sights on Nikki Mar-tinelli the minute she walked into his garden room in her high-heeled cowboy boots and tight leather pants. It wasn't just her body—although, Lord knows, he thought, glancing at her again, she made his mouth water with anticipation. It was something else. Something more. Something in the tilt of her chin and the gleam in her remarkable green eyes. Something in the way she planted her feet and stood her ground, challenging him, even though any fool could see he scared her spitless, way down deep at some basic man-woman level.
    Which was another thing that intrigued him. All his life, women had desired him, fawned over him, flattered him and flirted with him. They threw themselves at his head or, as she had so aptly stated, fell into his lap like ripe plums, but none in his memory had ever been afraid of him.
    He wondered if that hint of vulnerability, that fawn-like wariness, peeking out from beneath her tough cookie facade was another thing that could be laid at the door of the man who'd taught her the futility of waiting in line.
    He reached over and touched her hand lightly. "I'm sorry," he said softly, meaning it.
    She turned her head slowly and looked at him, obviously surprised by his admission. "For what?" she asked suspiciously.
    "You were trying to talk to me like a rational human being," he said, "and I was acting like a jackass."
    "Yes," Nikki said, a trace of asperity still in her voice. "You were."
    "Do you forgive me?"
    I shouldn't, Nikki thought. If I knew what was good for me, I wouldn't. "Are you ready to talk seriously?" she asked.
    He nodded.
    "Without jokes?" she insisted. "Or... or leering innuendo?"
    "On my honor as a Kingston," he said solemnly, vowing to keep his eyes strictly on the road and off her legs. At least for now.
    * * *
    "TE LLUS ABOUT The Devil's Game," Arsenio Hall suggested, leaning forward in his chair as if he were encouraging the telling of scandalous secrets. "The buzz around town says it's going to be the blockbuster movie of the summer."
    Sitting in front of the monitor in the greenroom— which wasn't green at all—Nikki watched Pierce flash a modest grin and proceed to tell Arsenio and his audience just what made his new action-adventure epic different from every other action-adventure movie ever made. She was amazed at how relaxed and natural he appeared under the merciless scrutiny of the lights and cameras, how easily he made blatant promotional plugs sound like normal conversation.
    Sitting on set with the late-night talk-show host, he exuded warmth and charm and an effortless, straightforward, unapologetic sex appeal that had the women in the audience squirming in their seats, and the men thinking he was the kind of guy they wouldn't mind sharing a few beers with. Nikki smiled to herself, wondering what those men would think if they knew the man on the stage was wearing nearly as much makeup as the female jazz singer who'd preceded him. That would blow his superstud image all to hell.
    And then again, maybe it wouldn't.
    She, after all, had stood guard by his swivel chair while the show's makeup artist